An history of standing armies in England

There is nothing in which the generality of mankind are so much mistaken as when talk of Government. The different effects of it are obvious to every one, but few can trace its causes. Most men having indigested ideas of the nature of it, attribute all public miscarriages to the corruption of mankind. They think the whole miss is infected, that 'tis impossible to make any reformation, and so submit patiently to their countries calmities, or else share in the spoil: whereas complaints of this kind are as old as the world, and every age has thought their own the worst.

 

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The first footsteps I find of a standing army in England since the Romans left the Island, were in Richards II's time, who raised four thousand archers, in Cheshire, and suffered them to plunder, live upon free Quarter, beat, wound, ravish, and kill wherever they went and afterwards he called a Parliament, encompassed them with his archers, forced them to give up the whole power of parliaments, and make it treason to endeavor to repeal any of the arbitrary constitutions that were then made but being afterwards obliged to go to Ireland to suppress a rebellions there, the people took advantage of it, and dethroned him.